Industrial sweepers used in cleaning streets and the like have a rotating brush mounted to the front or rear of a motorized vehicle. An electric or hydraulic motor drives the rotating brush or brushes along the surface of the area being cleaned, sweeping material into a bucket. The brush is controlled from the vehicle's cab with hydraulic or electric controls. The brush of the sweeper needs to be mounted in a position to sweep the area being traversed for cleaning the surface. This invention is for an industrial street sweeper and especially to a street sweeper having an attachment that has a forward dump hopper, a brush compartment and a coupler that allows for three dimensional movements between the sweeper and a prime mover.
One prior art U.S. Pat. No. 7,428,767 to Lougheed is for a sweeper which has a floating brush or drum assembly. A sweeper has a rotating brush or drum supported by a float arm movably coupled to the sweeper bucket. The float arm is coupled to a linkage to movably support the float arm between a retracted position and a forward position. The float arm is rotationally coupled to the linkage to compensate for height variations and provide a mechanism to rotate the linkage to move the float arm forward relative to the debris collection bucket.
Other U.S. Patents for street sweepers may be seen in the Hildebrand et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,756 for a Street Sweeper having an Elevating Hopper with Supporting Outriggers and in the Koester U.S. Pat. No. 6,687,939 for a Bucket Sweeper. The McDonald U.S. Pat. No. 4,037,284 is for a Sweeper Assembly while the Vanderlinden U.S. Pat. No. 6,154,911 is for a Debris Lifting Apparatus for use in a Surface Sweeping Vehicle. The Berfield et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,701,969 is for a Rotary Brush Sweeper with Easily Separable Debris Pan.
The present invention is for an improved industrial street sweeper sweeping attachment and especially to a street sweeper prime mover attachment that has a forward debris collection hopper coupled to a sweeper brush compartment and a coupler for coupling the sweeper attachment to the prime mover in a manner that allows for three dimensional movements between the sweeper attachment and a prime mover.